The Doppelgänger
by CombineGLaDOS
Summary: A story about the doppelgänger of mainly tomb raider underworld.
1. Prologue

**A/N: Hey, I'm back from my hiatus and think I wrote something worth sharing. Yay.**

**Ok, I'm not gonna lie, I never finished tomb raider (anniversary) so if this prologue is wrong...sorry, but most of this is during and pist underworld. Anyway, on with the prologue of lengthyness :3**

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A doppelgänger is, in folklore, a paranormal double of a living person, usually a sinister version, and harbingers of bad luck as well as omens of death.

A lesser known variant of the doppelgänger is the atlantian double. Created by atlantian gods, their purpose was to guard Atlantis, and later, the remnants. One was once created in the Great Pyramid, to pursue the great archaeologist, Lara Croft, and stop her from reaching Atlantis. However, the doppelgänger was heavily flawed, having no free will of body or mind.

This meant that once Lara Croft encountered it, it had no choice but to mirror her movements. If Lara moved to her left, the doppelgänger moved to its right. If Lara jumped, so did it. Even Lara shooting it was mirrored because despite having no physical weapons, it still used fire balls to hurt her.

Lara used this to her advantage, climbing up onto a stone pillar and jumping to the next, noticing that across the room, the second pillar was a vat of molten rock and that was what awaited the doppelgänger which was crude in appearance due to having no clothes nor skin for that matter. When it jumped, it would land straight in the lava and burn a fiery, painful death.

Lara then continued her path to Atlantis and soon confronted Jacqueline Natla, the atlantian goddess who created the doppelgänger. After a combination of dodges and attacks (more of the former on Lara's part) Lara believed Natla fell into the lake of magma at the bottom of the chamber they were in and had died but Natla, having large, black, bat-like wings flew to safety.

Around 10 years after this event, Natla teamed up with Amanda Evert, Lara's best friend turned enemy after Amanda believed Lara and their other friends gave up too easily on her when she became trapped in a flooding tomb in Paraiso, Peru. Amanda despised Lara most, thinking she left her to die owing her survival to the shadow demon, of whom she harnessed the power of.

A further 2 years after this, Natla created another doppelgänger, but this one was far superior to the last.

To be continued...

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**Reviews are appreciated :)**


	2. Main Story

This doppelgänger was superior in the way that it actually looked like Lara Croft, except with paler skin, red hair and dark eyes that also glowed yellow. But the appearance was just the icing of the cake; the strength which Lara's double act possessed far exceeded what strength the real Miss Croft had and even this was beclouded by the doppelgängers shadow powers, which allowed it to manipulate time in way of speeding it up or slowing it down. While it couldn't stop time, these powers made it possible for it to traverse deadly obstacles that would easily kill Lara Croft.

Upon the first encounter of both real and fake, the doppelgänger mimicked Lara's every move in an attempt to fool her into thinking she was in no severe danger, however, the door to the doppelgänger's left opened, which made Lara's move of drawing her weapon much more convenient, because the moment Alistair, Lara's close friend and aide stepped through the door the doppelgänger turned and shot him in the chest.  
"No!" It heard Lara yell, and then saw her turn to hit the door lock release for the tech room. Using it's shadow powers it was already behind Lara before she even had chance to turn and run.  
Lara aimed one of her 9mm pistols straight at the doppelgänger and fired but, once again thanks to shadow powers, it dodged. This was true for every shot and the final time Lara turned, the doppelgänger grabbed her arm, kicked her twice in the gut and hit her on the head. The final blow was enough to briefly incapacitate Lara, which was useful, because the shadow powers reflected human stamina, in the way that they weren't infinite and needed time to recharge. This incapacitation meant that the doppelgänger could run across the hall and use shadow powers to exit the inferno of Croft Manor, all before Lara sat up.

The next encounter was over a week later on Amanda's ship in the Andaman Sea. The doppelgänger was all too aware that Lara possessed járngreipr, which were Thor, the Norse god of thunder's, gauntlets and when it turned the corner that led to Natla's chamber, it was clear Natla's plan had gone accordingly, because now Lara held Mjölnir, Thor's hammer, which meant she had Megingjord, Thor's belt. Natla wanted her to get the hammer and the other 'accessories' so she could get into Avalon/Helheim, the Norse underworld and raise jörmungandr, the midgard serpent that encircled the earth and could destroy it in seconds, spewing poison into the air.  
Just then, the doppelgänger noticed Amanda ready to kill Lara using her own shadow demon powers and heard Natla's voice command.  
"Lara must not die before I reach Helheim, stop Amanda, kill her if you have to" following command, it grabbed Amanda, and threw her off the catwalk and into the pane of glass that acted as the floor surrounding the chamber with such force, it shattered and sent her falling deep into the bowels of the ship. The doppelgänger knew the stone giving Amanda her powers had saved her once and would save her again, but as to whether it would protect her from serious injury, it didn't know.  
This however, alerted Lara and the doppelgänger had to use its own shadow powers to dodge the lightning bolt that Lara sent its way and used them to flee also.

After 2 weeks and 3 days, Natla and Lara had reached their goal Avalon, and now the doppelgänger finally could fulfil her ultimate command: kill Lara Croft.  
The room that it found Lara and Natla in had clearly succumbed to all the centuries it had existed, the floor missing halfway and a waterfall of eitr, the fluid responsible for giving life in Norse mythology (ironically, it was also highly poisonous and would even kill the thralls of which it birthed), flowing from above, the blue glow rising up meaning it had pooled below.  
Lara got up and prepared to swing Mjölnir but the doppelgänger ran forward and grabbed part of the hammer to prevent Lara hitting and killing Natla and used this to begin her assault, attacking her and eventually straddling her, ready to deal the final blow that would end her life, but when it began to move her fist forward, a orange and black aura surrounded it and soon, it enveloped her whole body. Amanda had indeed survived her fall and now, she was in Avalon using her shadow demon powers to throw the doppelgänger over the ledge and into the eitr pool.

The doppelgänger awoke to realise she was lying on a small rock platform resting atop the eitr and felt relief that she hadn't fell and died. She looked around and saw several ledges and uneven rocks jutting from the wall that she could use to get back out. She was unaware of how much time had passed since she fell, but due to the eerie silence, it must have been a few hours, if not days. As to whether Natla succeeded, she was almost positive she hadn't because if she had the doppelgänger would have died along with the rest of the world upon jörmungandr's full awakening.  
When she came to the chamber of jörmungandr, the ruins meant that her suspicions were right, Natla had indeed failed.  
Across the chamber the doppelgänger saw something in the centre of the ornate stone dais so she decided to use the ruins to reach the other side.  
She was there in just over a minute, even the thralls couldn't stop her from reaching the dais and discovering Natla, still alive but in a thrall like state caused by the power of Mjölnir.  
"I like your new look" the doppelgänger spoke in a voice that sounded like Lara's but with slight distortion, and she gave Natla a smirk, knowing that the power of Mjölnir had broke all control Natla had over her.  
"There's too much Lara in you for your own good, slave" She continued smirking.  
"Okh Eshivar" Those 2 words gave Natla full control over the doppelgänger once more.  
"Take me back to your birth place" The doppelgänger obeyed, helping Natla up and giving her it's shoulder.

Upon arrival, Natla noticed that the power core must not be working and commanded the doppelgänger to go and fix the problem, then return for further instruction.  
After restoring the eitr flow to the power core and killing more thralls that a person can count she returned and was commanded:  
"Find Lara Croft and kill her, then after that end your own life as well"  
This angered it but she had no choice but to fulfil orders. What angered it more was the reason, Natla didn't want to see Lara's face again, and in the doppelgängers opinion, that wasn't good enough.

4 days later, beneath the ashes of what was once croft manor -destroyed courtesy of the doppelgänger itself- it found Lara, who had discovered the command that allowed her to control the thralls, telling a viking thrall to kill the doppelgänger the moment it turned the corner, but with superior strength, the thrall was soon nothing but body parts.  
"Ohk eshivar" Lara spoke the 2 words just as the doppelgänger reached her, giving her authority over it. When she asked what the doppelgänger was she was told it was her with the flaws removed (when Lara questioned if free will was a flaw, the doppelgänger didn't answer) then told it was to follow no commands, and it was a slave to no one. An orange smoke drifted from the doppelgängers eyes, and as she turned to leave, Lara told her to make sure Natla suffered and that was what she would do, make Natla suffer.

She returned to where Natla rested and knowing she wouldn't be able to kill her now so she proceeded to destroy the power core in the way Amanda, the one who cut the power, should have done. Upon returning, she destroyed the catches on the pod that kept it suspended and it fell, breaking and crushing the thrall-like Natla, but not killing her.  
"Get this off of me" Natla commanded but when the doppelgänger just gave her an oh so sadistic smile, Natla realised Lara must have found the words to control thralls and doppelgängers.  
"Ohk eshivar" Natla said before asking for help. The slab on top of her wouldn't crush her to death but the eitr slowly flooding the room from the corner flows would drown her.  
All the doppelgänger did was smile and do exactly what Lara told her: follow no commands.  
Natla didn't stop screaming for help until she drowned and then the doppelgänger was faced with a choice:  
Did she leave and live her own life, or stay and die, returning to what she once was...nothing?

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**A/N: Ok, so the reason the doppelgänger is referred to as she and it is because when she is under control, it's a puppet and has no gender, but when she is free of all command, she is her own person.**

**Reviews appreciated :)**


	3. Epilogue

"Ah!" Lara sighed as she finally discovered the mythology books in the library.  
Due to the croft manor being destroyed, Lara, along with Zip and Winston, had relocated to one of the other 2 Abbingdon Estates that Lara had inherited after the death of her father and a rather tiring legal battle with her uncle who, due to no definite remains of Richard Croft being found, would have inherited the estates instead. Lara didn't like dwelling on the court case; the moment it was declared Lara would inherit all that her father had owned the rest of her family had alienated her. Clearly, losing both parents by 18 wasn't hard enough on the teenage Lara.  
Lara skimmed through the pages of a book an Norse mythology, stopping when she came to Ragnorök, the day that Odin, his sons Thor and Loki and many other major figures would die. Thor would kill Jörmungandr, son of Loki, but would only walk 9 paces before succumbing to the poison and he himself dying.  
Lara had been like Thor when confronting Jörmungandr, but she had lived and it was Natla who suffered.  
So much of this was considered pure myth, but Lara knew better. While she had lost Mjölnir somewhere in Jörmungandr's chamber, she still had Megingjord and járngreipr to prove Thor had indeed existed. She also had 'Excalibur' now too, the original one she owned being destroyed at her usual home.  
She heard a door close near by, to the left and she realised it must be late. Zip's room was to the left of the library and seeing as he went bed usually after midnight, Lara decided she should probably call it a night and rightfully so too, it was a quarter past three according to her watch.

Lara looked at her reflection, locking eyes with it as she brushed her teeth and felt rather relieved.  
When the first doppelgänger lived, Lara always had the feeling something was following her, even her own shadow would worry her but once it died, that feeling left, only turning when she knew something was behind her and not whenever the wind blew across her neck.  
A few weeks ago, whilst getting ready for another adventure she suddenly became cautious of her own reflection but shook it off, thinking it was her age and too much tomb raiding and that it would pass after a while because her heart would have to give out before she gave up tomb raiding and with how fit she was for forty that was going to be a lot later than sooner. Hopefully, anyway.  
This feeling towards her reflection all stopped last night, five days after she last saw the doppelgänger and told it to make sure Natla suffered. She hadn't told Zip or Winston yet, because she wanted to break the news of Natla's death first, then the fate of the doppelgänger to eliminate risk of too much excitement.  
Maybe now Lara could resume tomb raiding for leisure now, and not for her own personal missions.

End

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**A/N: if you're still unsure of the fate of the doppelgänger read it again. I didn't want to make the fate explicit :3**

**please review :)**


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